Thinking to Believe

You may have heard that Oklahoma recently banned sex-selection abortions.  Interestingly, they are only the third state to do so (Illinois and Pennsylvania are the other two).  Considering the fact that the only major news source to pick up the story was the Washington Times, however, you probably have not heard that The National Board of Health and Welfare of Sweden has ruled that sex-selection abortions are legal in that country (since there is no law forbidding them).  Apparently, quite a few “tourists” come to Sweden to abort their children because they do not like their gender.

The vast majority of Americans – even pro-choice Americans – disapprove of sex-selection abortions.  Polls show that about 85% of Americans believe aborting a child because of its gender is a morally insufficient reason (and many countries ban the practice).  But why?  After all, if abortion is not a moral evil, what does it matter why a woman chooses to abort her baby?

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Abortion-choice advocates often argue that they have a right to an abortion because it is their body, and thus their choice.  Their mantra is “I can do what I want with my own body.”  This is what is properly called the bodily-autonomy argument.  The argument is flawed because it rests on the faulty assumption that the unborn “thing” in the womb is the woman’s body.  It is not.  It is separate living being, and we know so because it has its own unique genetic fingerprint.

While that fact alone should put all debate to rest, some may persist in their claim.  A good way to help them see that the thing growing in them is not their body is by asking them: “If I can show you that the unborn is not your body it would undermine your argument, right?” [Yes] Then ask, “Do you have a penis?” [No] “Could your unborn fetus have a penis?” [Yes] “Then the unborn is not your body, is it?” [Uh…no]

If you encounter someone with a very strong will, they might counter that the unborn “thing” is living inside the mother’s body against her will, and since she has control over her own body she gets to decide if she will share it with this “foreign invader.”  But the fact that it is living inside the woman’s body is irrelevant.  As D. Rutherford remarked, it no more gives her the right to kill the unborn than my owning a house gives me the right to kill the tenants!  The bodily-autonomy argument won’t work as a justification for abortion, so long as the unborn are full members of the human species.

If you haven’t heard by now, the famous late-term abortionist from Wichita, Kansas, George Tiller, was murdered on Sunday while attending a religious service at his local Lutheran church.  It is very likely that he was murdered because of his profession.  Indeed, this was no accidental murder.  He was sought out specifically.  Given how infamous he is for killing late-term babies, it is almost certain that his killer was motivated by his own pro-life ideology.  Given the fact that I am pro-life, and regularly discuss abortion on this blog, I feel it necessary to weigh in on this issue.

First, let me say that I condemn the murder of Mr. Tiller by his assailant.  While I think Mr. Tiller was deserving of death for the thousands upon thousands of babies he murdered over the years, his death should have been administered at the hands of the proper, governing authorities—not a citizen vigilante.  Of course, at this time in our history, what Mr. Tiller did is considered legal, and thus the governing authorities do not consider what he did to be murder, and thus would not execute him for any crime.  While this is a travesty of justice, it is no justification for citizens to take the law into their own hands, setting themselves up as judge and executioner.  We need to work within our unjust legal system to outlaw abortion just as the abolitionists worked within an unjust legal system to ultimately outlaw slavery.  We are not to take the law—or the lack thereof—into our own hands.

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Frank Beckwith wrote a concise argument against abortion, and for the intrinsic value of all human beings regardless of size, location, level of development, or degree of dependency that I wanted to share with you:

The unborn—from zygote to blastocyst to embryo to fetus—is the same being, the same substance, that develops into an adult.  The actualization of a human being’s potential, e.g. her “human” appearance and the exercise of her rational and moral powers as an adult (which abortion-choice advocates argue determine the unborn’s intrinsic value), is merely the public presentation of functions latent in every human substance from the moment it is brought into being.  A human may lose and regain those functions throughout her life, but the substance remains the same being.

Moreover, if one’s value is conditioned on certain accidental properties then the human equality presupposed by our legal institutions and our form of government…is a fiction.  In that case, there is no principled basis for rejecting the notion that human rights ought to be distributed to individuals on the basis of native intellectual abilities or other value-giving properties, such as rationality and self-awareness.  One can only reject this notion by affirming that human beings are intrinsically valuable because they possess a particular nature from the moment they come into existence.  That is to say, what a human being is, and not what she does, makes her a subject of rights.^[1]

A recent Gallup poll found that the majority of Americans now consider themselves pro-life (51%) rather than pro-choice (42%).  This is a near reversal of public opinion just one year ago, in which 50% of Americans self-identified as pro-choice and 44% as pro-life.  This is the first time since 1995 (when Gallup first began asking this question) that pro-life has been the majority view.  It is also the first time that the majority of women identify as pro-life (49% vs. 44%).  Currently, 54% of men consider themselves pro-life, versus 39% pro-choice.

A full 60% of Americans adults believe abortion should be illegal in all, or most circumstances.  The percentage of people who believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances has increased from 17% in 2008, to 23% in 2009.

When viewed by political affiliation, the shift toward the pro-life viewpoint has occurred almost entirely among Republicans.  A full 10% more Republicans consider themselves pro-life today, than they did last year.  Among Democrats, however, there has been virtually no change.  I hope the Republican Party takes notice of this poll, since it has been slowly moving away from its pro-life platform.  They are moving in a direction that is opposite of the movement of their base.  Republicans are in enough trouble as it is.  They cannot leave behind their pro-life platform and expect to win future elections.

Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare ruled that it legal to abort a baby based solely on its gender.  Let’s see if pro-abortion feminists will stand up in opposition to this practice or not.  Probably not.  And why should they?  After all, if abortion is about choice, it should not matter why one makes the choice they do.  All that matters is that the choice is theirs, and they are free to make it, even if that choice is to kill a baby girl, simply because it is a girl.

Anne Lamott, a so-called “progressive” Christian, wrote an article in the LA Times concerning a response she gave to a question about abortion during a panel discussion in Washington about social justice.  She is staunchly pro-choice, and even had an abortion herself.  Listen to what he has to say about abortion:

I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion — one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) — but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

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I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teeny weenie so-called babies — some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to send away for — when real, live, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shrift from the current administration.

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But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

Let me make a few observations in the way of evaluation.  In the first paragraph she made a moral distinction between the born and the unborn, and asserted that the choice of the born trumps the right to life of the unborn.  Why?  Why doesn’t the existence of the unborn life trump her right to choose?  The baby’s location?  But since when does where you are determine what you are, or what rights you are entitled to?  Maybe Lamott can explain to us how it is that being in a womb robs a human being of his/her rights.  Are there any other places humans reside in which they cease being the subject of basic rights?  How about Washington?

Based on her comments in the second paragraph, she seems to be arguing that the born have the right to decide the fate of the unborn because of differences in size.  Why?  How is size morally relevant?  Since when does your size determine one’s moral worth, and who is the subject of rights and who is not?  Does an adult female have the right to decide the fate of a 5 year old human being because she is bigger than her?  Of course not!  So why can an adult female decide the fate of a one month old human being?  Is it because it sooo small?  Well, then, exactly how big does one have to be before they are protected from being killed with impunity?  What is the exact size?  And what is it about that size that magically transforms the unborn into a morally significant subject of rights?

Lamott’s last paragraph is the most confusing.  While she says each human life is sacred (including the unborn’s), she argues that the right to an abortion is a crucial part of the fight for that sacredness.  What?!  We protect the sacredness of each human life by protecting a woman’s right to rob a tiny human being of his life?  If words mean anything at all her position is nonsensical.

Lamott’s most outrageous statement, however, is when she says we “must not inflict life on children who will be resented.”  Inflict life?  Since when is life something to be avoided?  She acts as though it is a disease.  And what’s so bad that life would not be worth living?  Having someone resent you?  There’s no doubt that being resented by anyone—yet alone your mother—would be a horrible experience, but since when do we kill people so they won’t experience potential emotional pain?  Should we kill our unborn children because someone other than the mother might resent them someday?  And how is it that something as immoral as resentment makes it a “moral necessity” that we kill unwanted children?  It seems to me that one immoral act is being used to justify another, all in the name of morality.  Such is the moral confusion of our generation, and it is being done in the name of Christianity.  God help her!

Former supermodel, Kathy Ireland, is a pro-life Christian.  She was recently interviewed by Fox News and gives a great defense of the pro-life position.

Pro-life apologist extraordinaire, Scott Klusendorf, has written an excellent post today on the topic of why so many Americans have a hard time grasping the humanity and moral quality of human embryos.  In brief, it is because they see human beings as things that are constructed rather than formed.  To quote Klusendorf:

Most people think an embryo is constructed piece by piece rather than something that develops from within. Consider a car, for example. When does the car come to be? Some might say it’s when the body is welded to the frame, giving the appearance of a vehicle. Others insist there can be no car until the engine and transmission are installed, thus enabling the car to move. Others still point to the addition of wheels, without which a vehicle cannot make functional contact with the road.

But no one argues the car is there from the very beginning, as, for example, when the first two metal plates are welded together. After all, those same metal plates can be used to construct some other object like a boat or plane. Only gradually does the assemblage of random parts result in the construction of a car.

…[M]ost Americans see the fetus exactly the same way-as something that’s constructed part by part. It’s precisely this understanding…that renders pro-life arguments absurd to so many people. As they see it, embryos are no more human beings in early stages of their construction than metal plates are cars in the early stages of theirs.

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[T]he construction analogy is deeply flawed. Embryos aren’t constructed piece by piece from the outside; they develop themselves from within. That is to say, they do something no constructed thing could ever do: They direct their own internal growth and maturation-and this entails continuity of being. Unlike cars, developing embryos have no outside builder. They’re all there just as soon as growth begins from within. In short, living organisms define and form themselves.

Unlike cars, then, human embryos are human from the onset of development, not at the terminus of development (or any other point along the way).  In fact, if they weren’t human at the beginning, they could not develop themselves in a human fashion throughout the process.  I think this distinction between construction and development is a powerful and important point to incorporate into our pro-life apologetic.

Many argue for abortion on the grounds that no one knows when life begins.  Unfortunately this is patently false.  We do know when life begins (even if we didn’t, this is good grounds for outlawing abortion, not permitting it).  Embryologists are clear in their affirmation that a new human being comes into being at fertilization.  That’s why informed pro-abortion apologists do not argue for abortion in this way.  Instead, they argue that pre-born human beings are not of equal worth to those of us on this side of the womb, because they are developmentally inferior to us (the emphasis is usually placed on their psychological inferiority).  The real debate over abortion, then, is whether we should consider unborn human beings to be of equal moral worth to human beings who have been born.  The renowned bioethicist and legal scholar, Robert George, conveyed this beautifully in a recent article of his:

When we debate questions of abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, human embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, we are not really disagreeing about whether human embryos are human beings. The scientific evidence is simply too overwhelming for there to be any real debate on this point. What is at issue in these debates is the question of whether we ought to respect and defend human beings in the earliest stages of their lives. In other words, the question is not about scientific facts; it is about the nature of human dignity and the equality of human beings.

On one side are those who believe that human beings have dignity and rights by virtue of their humanity. They believe that all human beings, irrespective not only of race, ethnicity, and sex, but also irrespective of age, size, and stage of development, are equal in fundamental worth and dignity. The right to life is a human right – therefore all human beings, from the point at which they come into being (conception) to the point at which they cease to be (death), possess it.

On the other side are those who believe that those human beings who have worth and dignity have them in virtue of having achieved a certain level of development. They deny that all human beings have worth and dignity and hold that a distinction should be drawn between those human beings who have achieved the status of “personhood” and those (such as embryos, fetuses, and, according to some, infants and severely retarded or demented individuals) whose status is that of human non-persons.